36. Silence and Song #2
Gevain’s words are so sweet, so insidious. Seren considers the idea against his will. A future with Gevain at his side and Nevander in his shadow. Seren could halve the burden of rule, while keeping Nevander as his respite.
Fae are much more open-minded than the people of Wymond. Seren wouldn’t have to hide. He could dance with Nevander. Kiss him under moonlit flowers. Retreat to the Spiritwood treehouse, frolic with the pixies, discover all the wonders of the realm and each other.
They could strive to forget that Seren belonged to someone else.
No. Seren can’t do that to Nevander. He can’t do that to Elladar either, because he doesn’t trust this manipulative asshole to rule with kindness.
Most of all, Seren can’t do that to himself.
Gevain stops two steps above him, one hand outstretched. “Being overwhelmed is understandable, Your Highness. Let me ease your burdens.”
Seren locks eyes with Tansy, whose bloodstained face is now wet with tears.
“I’m sorry,” Tansy whispers. “I’m not actually all right with the fingers thing. Can you just agree to whatever?”
“Nevander is a good man,” Gevain says, with such sweet understanding. “But so stubborn. You could protect him.”
Another choice that’s not a choice. Gevain must need Seren’s consent for a lifebond, or he wouldn’t seek it. He’s engineered this trap to force Seren into agreement. He’s cut Seren away from all his allies. Weapons. Answers.
Fine. Seren doesn’t need any of those. He’s done being yanked around, and he’s done with desperation.
It’s time for anger.
Seren looks into Tansy’s bloodshot eyes.
“I’ve been very annoyed with you. Because you’ve been fucking annoying—and because I care about you.
” Glaring up at Gevain, Seren names his emotions like a ritual.
“I’m scared of this world because I care so much about it, and I’m afraid it doesn’t care about me. ”
Gevain’s brow furrows, like he senses the storm beneath Seren’s skin.
“I’m furious with Nevander, because I love him.” Truth forces past Seren’s lips like flowers and thorns. “Because it’s easier than admitting I’m angry with myself.”
“What are you doing?” Gevain demands.
“I’m done turning all that anger inward,” Seren says, with a savage smile. “And I don’t care for you at all.”
Anger and hurt and betrayal and love pour out like rain, like fire. Everything Seren’s ever bottled up. Other people’s pain and his own. The very air gleams with power.
Seren’s lungs seize in a silent, ecstatic scream. He falters, losing his balance. No, that’s the haven itself shaking. The pavilion atop the dais screeches sideways. Tansy shrieks as a lantern shatters.
Tansy’s afraid, and Seren regrets that, but that same regret only joins the maelstrom of emotion. He directs the sharpest blades at Gevain. Only splinters of empathy strike Tansy.
Gevain staggers, trying to shore up his crumbling mental control. His blade vanishes into sparks, and his eyes are wide. “Stop this.”
Clutching the trellis for support, Seren asks, “What happens to a haven when its master dies?”
“You won’t find out,” Gevain snarls.
Seren laughs, giddy, and crushes Gevain’s shield like an eggshell. Ambition still burns beneath the panic. Disbelief rooted in superiority. Gevain believed Seren was less than him.
He doesn’t believe that anymore.
Seren relishes the acrid taste of Gevain’s fear. It isn’t kind. Seren would hate for Nevander to see him now. He just wants Gevain to feel what he feels. Suffer. Understand. Regret.
A glass pavilion crashes in on itself. Waves slap the edges of the courtyard. The sky dims, and past it, Seren feels—
Gevain’s fist collides with his face.
Seren crumples. Physical pain is a distant echo, hot above his cheekbone, scraping his shoulder through the silk and lace. Far more painful is the sudden rush of yearning. Gevain’s boot drives into his side, and Seren wishes desperately he wasn’t alone.
Nevander isn’t here. Seren will have to be enough.
Except he may not be. His anxiety creaks through sea-soaked wood. His bones strain with it, more painful than Gevain’s next bruising kick.
Gevain is losing control, but Seren’s empathy isn’t enough to destroy him. As Gevain drops to his knees, seizing Seren’s throat, Seren needs more power. He reaches, searching, yearning, for something that will reach back.
“Stop this,” Gevain spits, fingers digging into Seren’s throat like iron nails. A streak of blood glitters beneath his nose. “I have lived sixty times your meager life. You cannot best me.”
There. Beyond the veil of Gevain’s haven waits the power Seren has shied from. The dance of stillness. The anchor of sunlight. The endless song of knowing. Seren gasps as Gevain and Tansy and the haven become insubstantial. He sees himself reflected in incandescence.
Nevander warned him. Lysandra, too. Summer’s royal gift is too immense to wield without the crown. Fae can only speak truth, but truth is rooted in belief.
And Seren believes he doesn’t need a crown, nor anyone else’s permission to seize power. He doesn’t intend to seize it at all.
He’ll ask instead.
“What do you offer?” Seren asks through Gevain’s bruising grip.
Gevain must think the question is for him. He says something, pressing harder, but Seren can’t hear it. The true answer arrives not as words, but an idea.
Sovereignty. Power. Weapon and respite.
Seren’s next trembling words are silent. He’s dizzy, his air cut off, as he asks, What do you seek?
Light and dark. Silence and song.
Balance.
A question follows the answer. Summer asks, not quite in words, what Seren will give.
Nevander would advocate caution. Careful negotiation, defense against unforeseen consequences. But Seren doesn’t want to protect himself alone. He wants to protect Nevander, Tansy, Harmony, and everyone he can. So, he offers something he never valued before, but it’s the best thing he has.
Himself, in service to Summer, in service to balance, as long as he lives.
Light blazes so bright Seren can barely see. Agreement rings like a bell in his heart. The bargain is struck. Seren is king, and Summer sings, Come home.
Salt air and incense scatter. Sea and courtyard vanish. Warm earth cradles Seren’s back—before the force of magic lifts him.
Breath floods his lungs as a wall of power slams Gevain away. Tansy swears, a high fragile litany. Through the blinding light, Seren catches one glimpse, unchained but still bloody, before Tansy falls away.
No, Tansy isn’t falling. Seren is rising, born by magic past the towering trees. Past the pale palace walls. His back burns with the stretch of unused muscle. New bones hook not into joint and sinew but the very core of Seren’s magic.
Feathers darken the edge of his vision. Wings the blue of evening shadows, iridescent in the sourceless light.
Not long ago, Seren was shocked by a change of hair color. The revelation of wings simply feels right. This is him.
This is his realm.
His wings move, but the power lifting him belongs to Summer.
Seren sees more than the forest and rivers unrolling beneath him.
He stops a hundred feet above ground. Two hundred.
Everything is so close and so distant at once.
So clear and so hazy. The physical becomes translucent, revealing the heart and veins of Summer itself.
He can’t see it with his eyes, yet it shimmers.
He can’t hear it with his ears, yet it hums.
The heart has veins. Leylines. As soon as Seren thinks the word, his awareness rides them like a leaf upon white water.
Images batter him. Pixies swarming blue-white trees.
Dryads with bark-like skin, looking up from their forest camp.
Sinuous scaled creatures darting into underwater tunnels.
A rabbit nursing her young. A hawk breaking a vole’s neck. A seed sprouting.
Seren feels traces of foreign magic, rare and difficult to grasp. A blurred glimpse of a red-crowned tree. A white-furred fox donning a gray glamour.
Summer places a word in Seren’s mind: orphans. These are creatures of Autumn bloodlines, or Winter, or Spring. Born of those caught in Summer when the other realms were lost. They too belong to the balance.
Seren’s sense of wonder grows brighter than the light. The wonder isn’t his own. It belongs to every being in the realm who witnesses him and is astounded.
This realm is wondrous, and Seren belongs. He’s wondrous, too.
A bright nexus shines from the palace, warm with recognition. Primrose. Hundreds of miles away, her wild mirror Shalin roams a broken hillside. The wild bear does not pause at Seren’s presence.
Then Seren strikes darkness. Madness. Beyond the wildkeeper, shadows writhe. Seren’s flight falters. He can’t connect with anything in the nightlands, where Summer’s power has no purchase. Seren yanks his attention away before his empathy absorbs the madness.
One mind reaches for him. A breath of Summer in the dark. A stranger calls out, “Calithel?”
But Seren is already recoiling. Pain lances through him. His mind blurs, overwhelmed, struggling to separate himself from millions of hearts. His wings shake, too new to hold him aloft for so long.
Summer offered power, not protection. Seren’s wings disappear into cold light.
As he falls, he has only breath and power for a single word. The summons echoes in rustling leaves and running rivers, murmuring across the realm.
“Nevander.”